I wish AO3's tagging system could differentiate between leading characters and supporting ones.

[beatrice_otter]

So!  I am in the mood for some Lois Lane, Awesome Girl Reporter.  I take me to AO3, and find the Lois Lane tag, and sort it by kudos.  What do I find?

Pages and pages of Clark Kent/Lex Luthor slash (Smallville era) and Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne slash (current movies), with the occasional welcome break for Kara Danvers/Cat Grant femmeslash (Supergirl TV show).  In all of these, Lois is a minor background character who either a) gets our heroes together, b) is the obstacle to them getting together, or c) is off on the casefic aspect of the fic while the main focus is on our heroes getting together.

Now, it's nice to have the occasional femslash thing in there, so it isn't all "Lois Lane Pushed Aside for Whitecock," but still.  I'm not looking for Lois Lane, Minor Supporting Character (and shoved into a one-dimensional box to facilitate someone else's love story).  I want Lois Lane, Awesome Girl Reporter!

Going for the Clark Kent/Lois Lane tag does get me stories where Lois is actually a main character, although also a lot of stories where she's just there to be shoved out of the way for the whitecock pairing.  But while I love CK/Lois Lane fics, it's frustrating that either I'm limited to that or slogging through ENDLESS PAGES OF OTHER STUFF to get to what I really want, which is Lois Lane doing her job and being AWESOME at it.

This is also my problem whenever I'm in the mood for Sam Wilson fics.  In a very high percentage of fics, he is there to facilitate the Steve/Bucky angst.

And here's the thing: if AO3's character tags were broken up into "main character" and "supporting character," when I want stories focusing on Lois Lane or Sam Wilson or any of the host of interesting characters who get shoved aside in favor of the Major Pairing, I could easily find fics where they are the focus!

Comments

[alatefeline]

Excellent point. I tend to search for user-created tags of "X being awesome" or "BAMF X" or a character-specific awesomeness trope, but it really really really isn't the same as being able to filter for main character, and it's only functional at all in large fandoms.

And it's very frustrating to go looking for under-represented awesome that can fully express itself in fandom, and find fandom mindlessly replicating the shove-in-fridge dynamics of bad (aspects of) mainstream media.

Without naming names...I am personally refusing to read anything *else* sympathetic towards a particular evil white sad bad boy until the imbalance that gave him more fics than a black actual hero is corrected. I get why the character is interesting! I would read that! But if someone has have the resources to explore his inner conflicts they have the resources to at least TRY to include these other characters who are also interesting and NOT simultaneously privileged and, again, actually evil. I can't dictate anyone's art. They can write and post whatever they want to. But other people can't dictate my audience participation, so I'm drawing lines that reflect what I WANT to see being written / created.

I want to see the main and supporting character tags happen, now.

[beatrice_otter]

Well, and the "women being awesome" tag is too often used to tag fics where the "awesomeness" involved is solely limited to getting the juggernaut whitecock ship together. And for specific characters, "bamf x" works but what if I want angst/whump starring them? Won't come up!

I used the tech support/comments link on AO3 to ask for this to happen. If enough people do, maybe it will?

[alatefeline]

Good points. And good plan.